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Thursday, October 13, 2005

Zone Out Time

There's this great reverse fountain that sits right outside of the Norris Theatre here at USC where the water doesn't shoot up in the air, but gets sucked down into a vast cavernous somewhere. I know that there's also one like this at UCLA, but I've never hung out around that one. I do hang out at the USC anti-fountain at times when I'm looking for a great introspective moment.

At times I wonder if this isn't some giant metaphor for the film business or for the education business (you take your pick). You know, things start out visible and within reach. But then, as things progress, they inevitably recede further and further from view, down and down into some unknowable anus-like pit.

Hmmm, maybe I should be introspective a bit less.

In any case, it makes me wonder just what the point of the fountain is. I've always considered water a rather magical element. I've spent an absurd amount of time staring at waterfalls and watching the patterns of the cascading water. I often drive over to the Pacific Ocean, a few blocks from my house, just to look out at the water from the Santa Monica Bluffs. I love the sound and the visuals of moving water (and it pretty much always moves -- even when it's sitting in the bath). If I sit at the painfully uncomfotable concrete top of the anti-fountain I can hear the rustling of the water. But if I sit a short distance away, I can neither hear it nor see it.